WinBackup Description:

Awarded Best Backup Software by Computer Shopper and termed "exceptionally simple to use" by PC World, WinBackup 2.0 Standard is now the obvious choice for home and small office users. Being one of the most efficient and reliable backup solutions available WinBackup 2.0 Standard will help you save both time and money.

Review for WinBackup

WinBackuprating
4.91 out of
5
based on
47 ratings. With
6 user reviews.

Winbackup 2.0 (2.2)

Scott|07/19/06

The saftware said it wanted to update so I said Okay. It deleted the old program with the serial number and needs this for the new program. After I restored the original there;s no way to get the serial number whic I seem to have misplaced (my bad). It would seem in 2006 it should automatically transfer. Welcome back to the days of DOS I guess.

So easy to use

Marshall|01/30/06

I am now able to backup all my emails and it is so easy. WinBackup works perfect, a truly great piece of software.

WinBackup 2

Geoffrey C Jenkins|11/18/05

Installation

I found the downloaded file very easy to install but you must only select the install type you have a serial number for or the installation will fail. Versions available are Standard, Professional and Server. The icons added to the Start menu include a link to a help file in Adobe Reader (pdf) format. You will need Adobe Reader (free) to be able to read or print it. This manual is also available from the program ‘Help’ menu or icon.

OperationBackupThe backup sequence is nicely laid out with tabs ordered from left to right on a toolbar. Program help is very pretty as well as helpful in stepping you through the procedures.

Firstly I ran a Total backup of my "Documents and Settings" (which of course, included my windows temp and Temporary Internet Files folders, neither of which should be included in a backup) and I received a heap of errors. After isolation these folder from my backup selection, things ran much better. I selected a ‘Verify Type’ of Secure (Compare All Data) for this backup.

If you rename a New Folder created in the ‘Select Target Location’ under the ‘Save To’ tab and then press OK the name does not stick. You must first click beside it, on a white space, before clicking OK to make it work correctly. If the folder already contains a folder called ‘New Folder’, the program is unable to create a second one ‘New Folder (2)’ and will instead use the existing one.

The help manual says you can backup files onto removable disks and over a Network. I discovered that removable disks must be plugged in before starting WinBackup or they don't turn up in the drives list. Saving across a network is not possible using the ‘Select Target Location’ dialog unless the network path is "mapped" to a drive letter. Although the ‘Start Time’ increments only in 10's of minutes using the ‘+’ and ‘-‘ buttons under ‘Schedule, you can manually enter your own time in the field, say 15 minutes past the hour.

The backup proceeded well with status messages coming up about Backup Started, Backup Completed, Verify Started, Verify Completed times and ‘Unable to open file’ messages on locked system files – registry. I also received a couple of Unable to find file errors - to be expected as I was still using the computer. On my very first backup which included my Temporary Internet Files folder I received 88,570 Read file invalid - Invalid handle messages during the verify phase. The verify neither completed nor failed, it just looked like it gave up. As I mentioned earlier, you need to leave this folder un-ticked in the backup job. The final backup file was compressed to about one third of the total files size. (18167 files read, 24,689Kb Bytes Copied, 20Kb/Sec, Elapsed time 21 minutes 31 seconds) The Job Summary window showed these files were compressed into a 7,403Mb backup file

While the backup was running I was able to read the Help file and even create another backup job without disrupting the running job. Upon leaving the program to itself for a week, it carried out the scheduled backups for me, even adding a date suffix to the backup job in some cases.

Second backup - My DocumentsI think the average user would find it difficult to select "My Documents" because you have to know how to find the folder via the directory tree by following the "Documents and Settings" branch. Not something the average computer user would know.

This backup read 13000 Files (2 408 042 Kb at about 5.4Mb/sec carrying out the save part of the job in 8 minutes. The verify process takes over twice as long as copying files because it has to unpack each file and compare it byte by byte with its original. This is the only secure way to verify backup files. It seems to get slower as it progresses and ended up taking 28 minutes giving a Total backup/verify time of 36 minutes.

I noticed that a ‘Full’ backup clobbers any previous backup file without asking. Not very well behaved!

Restore

The correct restore procedure for Incremental backups is not covered in the Windows Help but only in the pdf version which users (me anyway) would assume is only a copy of F1 Help in book printable format. I think this procedure would be quite confusing for the average user. I expect the application to sort out which ‘Incremental’ backups belong to a ‘Full’ backup. The file-naming system offers no help on this but the Backup Jobs log is helpful. "Restore From" offers the windows file open dialog window which includes Desktop, My Documents, My Network Places which were not available directly in the Backup ‘Save To’ dialog.

Restore FromI was able to select any file location including those in My Network Places to select a legitimate *.wb2 file from. When I went to Select Files, the file tree was created from the backup and I was able to select any folder or each specific file to restore. There was no date information shown for the backup file itself nor for the files in the "Restore Files" tree. This information is essential if you have messed up a file and you wish to restore an earlier version.

Restore ToVery nice options. Original Location, Alternate Location, Single Folder. I Selected Single Folder and when presented with "Location" clicked on the Browse icon. From here I was unable to create a new folder in which to restore. I had to type the full path in the Location field or select the parent folder I wanted my folder in, and manually append the new folder name to that. The resulting restore was carried out after that, creating the destination folder without asking for confirmation.

For my second restore I elected to restore to Original Location, leaving the default Replace option "None (Restore Missing Files Only)". I deleted one of the original files to check it would be restored. This restore operation seemed to go OK with only "Restore Started" and "Restore Completed' status messages as for the other one.

After both restores I examined the Restore Logs and found NO details of number of files not requiring restoration or number restored etc. Also in both cases the modified date of the original file was lost and replaced with the current date and time. This is not acceptable for a file backup program.

MiscellaneousAlthough the installation software offers to Modify, Repair or Remove the application by running the installation program again, there were no features to modify in the Standard versionPricingAt the time of this review (October 05) the pricing was Standard - $49.95, Professional - $69.95, Server - $349.95 and an upgrade from Standard to Professional is on special for $24.95. The extra features you get in the Professional version are minimal. Command line scripting support, higher encryption (not compression) and some "nice" features for backing up "Microsoft Outlook" files if you happen to use Outlook, not a lot more for the $20-$25 extra. The Server version only runs on Microsoft Windows 2000 or 3000 Server.SummaryI was generally disappointed with the Standard version reviewed and even the Professional version would not give me the features I am used to in a backup program. Overall I liked the simplicity and layout of the program but would not recommend WinBackup 2.0 Standard Version (2.1.1). Watch out for an update.